Monday, June 24, 2013

Pardon for falling back to neglecting the art blog - been busy, busy, busy.

"Essence of Life" - commission, 15 hours. A very interesting piece to work on, as the commissioner had a very specific image in mind to represent these concepts. The "glow" on the crystals and the dragons is along the lines of the golden saint discs found in medieval religious artwork.

Another 15 hour painting commission, this one of a raccoon prime minister; the commissioner instructed me to base him off of Howard Hughes.

Gratuitous closer view of the raccoon.

Drawn as the prize for the winner of my last Dresden Files' trivia stream. Lara Raith.

While we're at it have a doodle of her brother, Thomas Raith, as he first appears in book 3. Love me some White Court vampires.

And now for something completely different - something I painted my boyfriend for his birthday. It's a family portrait of sorts, with us as alien trolls and our cat as a mutant. Uhh we got to know each other over Homestuck, so. Printed and framed this as a cute 6"x4", it lives on his desk at his job now. You know, as a classy family portrait should.

And I guess while I am sharing humanoid things, 20 minute doodle of Femshep go!

Speedpaint commission spam time. 1 hour.

1 hour.

1 hour.

1 hour.

1 hour, 30 minutes. (Design is tricky okay.)

2 hours.

2 hours.

1 hour.

2 hours.

1 hour.

4 hours.

Alright that's enough of that for now. Hey, I'm still doing that sketchbet thing. Sometimes I use my daily offering to do useful things like figure out what the deal with horse anatomy is. Horses are pretty bizarre compared to a lot of other quadrupeds I am more frequently asked to draw.

Sometimes I use my sketchbet to express the fact that kilts are pretty attractive.

Or, you know, BEER.

Still poking at this project gradually, as per the commissioner's budget.

All the characters are kept separated in folders as well, and will eventually receive higher detail revisitations like this one.

Speaking on ongoing work, not long ago I was contacted by an author to strike out on a long term arrangement of illustrating for their poetry books. Poetry in the style of medieval epic poetry, that is - lengthy stories written in poetic format. Their characters are from a very specific universe with quite particular proportionary concerns, so it is a little different than my usual work in some respects. This is the cover for the first book, Laments of the Lanorei. The characters pictured are urchins from slave races in the story, a sort of medieval fantasy dystopia.

Closer view of detail.

The beginnings of an illustration for the second book.

AND NOW for something completely random, a doodle of an octolady.

I have a little 3"x4" micro sketchbook I've taken to carrying around again... here we have my character Blood Raven and my friend Shia!

I continue to assert that I am a mature and sophisticated artist.

While I'm on the topic of sophistication-- whoa where did these come from? This was a quick color commission, haha.

Oh, and don't worry, Ted is still a thing. It's just that with Anthrocon preparations on top of my normal commission load lately, my comic drawing endeavors have taken a temporary back-burner.

Yeah, Anthrocon. I suppose we can talk about that. In addition to preparing rather a lot of premade items to sell directly at the convention, I am also in the phase of taking preorders for customized pickup orders, such as convention badges. Here's a motorcycle themed one I did from Fringe. (This then gets laminated and finished off with a badge clip, once the print I ordered arrives.)

Here's a work-in-progress of a grape themed one for Alablast!

While we're tossing bright green around, this is what my traditional media badges look like. Colored cardstock of the commissioner's choice, inking, acrylic paint highlights. Also will ultimately be finished off with lamination and clip. Been doing them this was for the past couple years.

Unlike the past couple years, however, I have an official table in the Dealer's Den rather than just a lottery seat in the Artist's Alley. As far as my prep work has gone, that's meant preparing much more to sell ahead of time rather than only pulling in funds from on-the-spot drawings. These were a set of parody postcards and prints I designed. Only went with the first two due to time constraints.

Finished Firefly parody design.

Finished Star Trek parody design.

I also decided to try some knicknacks this year in addition to prints/framed prints/postcards. So, dogtag necklaces! These are the designs I ordered. Pardon the derptacular sleepy combo preview I threw together the other night of all the mock-ups.

I'm also trying hand painted sketchbooks. I'm arbitrary making a few to sell, such as this red fox, but also took preorders for a couple custom ones, which I will be completing this upcoming week. Liquitex acrylic on a Canson sketchbook, sealed afterward with a clear acrylic spray.

So moral of the story is most of my waking hours I am doing this.

Sometimes it's a lot and I feel like this.

But most of the time I'm just a crazy lady and I really do enjoy my job.

PSYCHE not wrapping up this blog post yet. Here's 4 hours into what will be a much longer painting eventually. I am jealous of that chakat's kitchen. I want that much counter space dang.

More speedpaint commissions! 2 hours.

2 hours.

1 hour.

Wrapping up legitimately now with a teaser from that big Battlestar Galactica themed painting with 11 characters in it. Very close to done now. I hope. One way or another, this week, I am completing it. I am doing this, man. I am making this happen.

If you want to see more of my art there's always my terrifying sketchbet blog itself and my FA, since not everything ever since my last blog post made it here. Too much art, and I should go actually grab some sleep. Enjoy!